


Heaven Has No Taste

by nerdlordholocron



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: AU: Good Omens fusion, Gen, Human!Everyone Else, angel!Yasha, demon!Molly
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2019-06-17
Packaged: 2019-09-22 03:12:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17051987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerdlordholocron/pseuds/nerdlordholocron
Summary: In which:* a demon who can’t remember why he’s on Earth has no inclination of bringing about its end;* the angel who found him under a bridge has got no idea how deal with any of this;* an Antichrist is left on the doorstep of a local artist and oddball, who promptly informs her roommate that they will be keeping this adorable baby;* it takes a village to raise a child;* the world probably does not end.Or in other words, the Good Omens AU where Molly and Yasha are the demon and angel dragging their feet on the whole apocalypse thing, and the rest of the M9 are unknowingly caring for the child intended to kick it off. Friendship, shenanigans, almost certainly footnotes. Also probable Beaujester later on.





	1. prologue: a dark and stormy night

**Author's Note:**

> All I really have to say about this is that it seemed like a good idea at the time. This isn’t replacing Fly Me Back Home; that’s still going to finish, and this will likely have a slower update schedule until that one’s done. But it was such a good plot bunny that I at least had to start it.

Yasha flew through the storm.

It was the only sort of weather she got to fly in, these days. The humans had had to go and make everything all complicated by learning to fly machines around in the air. She’d found out the hard way that they’d spot her in any other weather, and then that was several minor miracles that she had to explain to her superior, and she was never all that good at explaining things. It wasn’t all bad, she supposed. There was an exhilaration in dodging lightning bolts, and it took so much focus that she didn’t have any left to spare on worrying about explaining things, or on the various other ways the humans had made things complicated these days. The old “be not afraid” routine didn’t work as well as it used to.* Up here, that was all moot, and she could feel the wind in her hair and under her scruffy feathers. She soaked the feeling in.

But then again, she was soaking the cold rainwater in too, and that was a bit miserable even for an angel. It had been a few hours, by now, and bits of her eyelashes were starting to freeze. She blinked the ice off into nonexistence and circled round until she spotted a potential shelter. Yes, there— an old stone bridge to hide under, roadblocks on either side. Structurally unsound for cars to cross, maybe, but probably fine for a large but otherwise generally woman-shaped being to hide under. Yasha landed, and walked under the bridge, and shook her hair and wings out like the world’s biggest angelic sheepdog.

One of the shadows under the bridge yelped and spluttered.

“Is anyone there?” Yasha asked the darkness. “It’s okay, I’m sorry— I didn’t mean to get you wet. You don’t need to be afraid,” she added, out of uncountable years of habit.

“That’s great,” griped the shadow. “This is deeply unpleasant. Where are we? Who are you?” Another pair of wings stretched upward into the gloom, followed by the bare shoulders attached to them, followed by the horned head attached to those. The demon turned to face Yasha, glowing red eyes full of confusion with a side of annoyance. “What on earth am I doing here?”

Yasha made several motions at once, and they all roughly cancelled out. Her wings fanned out again, her eyes began to glow, and she swung back to begin a strike with her holy sword— only for it to not materialize, as it hadn’t in a good long while, and she overbalanced back into the mud. “You’re a demon,” she said, looking up at the roughly man-shaped creature across from her, who seemed to be getting exasperated.

“I guess? I don’t know, I just turned up here. I literally don’t know who I am. It’s been a bit of a shit time so far.” The demon gave an exaggerated shrug. “Have you got any ideas?”

Yasha clambered back to her feet. “You don’t know how you got here? Haven’t you got a mission to torment, or corrupt, or something?” Almost every bit of firmament in her being was screaming, _this is the Enemy, you should kill him_ , but the remaining few bits were muttering thoughtfully about how much the demon looked oddly like the cat she’d rescued from a gutter by accident that one time. She didn’t know what to make of it all.

“Not as far as I know. That sounds like a bit of a shit job, though, doesn’t it?”

She gaped for a moment. “Yes,” she said finally. “Well, um, if that’s not what you’re here for, you should probably— well, the humans won’t... react too well if you look like that. You might want to try to look more like one of them?”

The demon’s brow furrowed. “How’s that?”

“You just...” Yasha pulled her wings in until they vanished, to demonstrate. “You should probably put away the horns as well, and the tail, and the, um...” She stared at the demon some more, trying to discern color. “The purple.”

“Huh.” The demon screwed up his face, trying to figure it all out, and then copied Yasha’s approximate posture until he was standing there looking more or less human— mop of black hair, pinky-brown skin, eyes that at least had whites even if they were still red in the iris. “Bit boring, isn’t it?”

Yasha shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess. They decorate themselves, and such, just... differently. Nobody’s purple, or has red eyes.”

The demon flashed a grin. “Decorating sounds like fun. I’ll have to look into that. Well, I mean.” He looks up at Yasha. “Is there somewhere I can go that’s not raining so hard?”

“I don’t know if I should really be helping you,” Yasha said, still trying to figure out if she was remotely doing the right thing here. “Usually I’m supposed to fight demons. But you don’t seem to want to hurt anyone, so maybe it’s okay to not do that?”

“I mean, yeah, that wasn’t really on my priorities list, and anyway I wouldn’t like to see what would happen if you had to stop me,” the demon replied agreeably. “I mostly just want to get dry, and figure out what to actually do on this planet. Maybe we can come to an arrangement?”

Yasha nodded slowly. “I suppose so. What’s your name, demon?”

The demon grimaced. “Lucien, I think. I don’t remember all that well, to be honest. Fuck, but that’s awful. Lucien sounds like an absolute dick. Can I just make up a new one, or something?”

“I don’t see why not.” Yasha thought for a minute. “There are— books, I could borrow, that you could pick one out of, maybe.”

“Works for me,” said the demon, whose name was not going to be Lucien if he could help it. He looked to Yasha’s shabby, soaking clothes, then materialized a similar set in a truly awful riot of color. Thus shielded against the elements, he walked out from under the bridge into the pouring rain. “Come on, let’s get this over with. It’s hell out here.”

* It hadn’t worked terribly well back in the day, given how big she was and how she could never quite get her eyes to match, but it was a routine all the same.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I figured I’d give Molly a bit more of a running start here than his tiefling incarnation gets so far as functioning despite not knowing who he is goes, but rest assured, that doesn’t mean his lack of a past isn’t going to feature.


	2. t minus nine (years)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember how I said Fly Me Back Home would still be updating, and more frequently? That’s still true, it’s just that I’m not caught up on the actual show and I want to be for that one. Next update from me will probably be FMBH.

The demon now known as Mollymauk Tealeaf was not having a great night of it.

Two years. That's how long it had been since a bewildered angel had found him facedown under a bridge in the rain, remembering little besides a needlessly edgy name and a short, unpleasant impression of being slingshot up out of hell. Two years of glorious free time, just trying to take everything in before whoever had chucked him out of Down There remembered and did something about him. He'd learned about thrift shops, and tattoos, and quite a lot about the various effects of putting interesting things in his mouth.

Yasha had been a bit taken aback by it all. Here was this demon, perfectly friendly if a bit of an ass, and a more decent sort than some of the humans she'd met. Still given to vice, but mostly because he could reset his liver to factory settings if it came down to it, so why not? All told he wasn’t anything like what she expected from a demon, which made it hard for her to bring herself to fight him like she ought to, and the end result was that she just checked on him to make sure he wasn’t doing anything awful, or possibly that he was all right. And let him braid her hair, sometimes.

Molly quite liked Yasha. They made vague unsuccessful attempts at keeping each other out of trouble, and she looked out for him, for all she wasn't supposed to. She'd found him the books where he'd got his name, a place to stay, even the shop where he'd got his favorite godawful jacket. She was sweet, even if she still managed to be devastatingly awkward around humans after someone or other only knew how many years. And she was extraordinarily tough, not that he knew many other angels to compare her to.

He was really wishing she was here, right about now.

Hell had caught up to him. His apparent superiors— Hotis and Ghurrix, some distant, cobwebbed, and unwanted corner of his memory supplied— were currently sitting across a little park picnic table, eyeing him with no small amount of irritation. Molly sincerely hoped that nobody was out walking their dog late, because both of the senior demons weren’t particularly good at looking human. Ghurrix was glowing faintly, and Hotis had somehow mixed up his hands.

“We thought that you would have learned your lesson by now, Lucien,” Hotis growled.

“Granted you’re more polite than last time, but we wanted you to become more _effective_ as well,” Ghurrix pointed out.

“Lucky for us, this is the last mission we need you for.”

“And you know how bad things will go for you if you stick your foot in it on this one, so we figure you’ll do it right.”

“And what mission is that, o Great Dark One?” So far Molly had been doing his damnedest to seem like he had any kind of context and loyalty, to prevent them from incinerating him on the spot. It somehow seemed to be working, if only because demon lords loved a good grovel.

“The end is nigh,” Ghurrix rumbled. “We have a very important package for you to deliver.”

“It’s not quite a straightforward delivery,” Hotis added. “You see, there will be a deception— that is why you were chosen, of course—“

“Because you’re a lying bastard,” Ghurrix supplied helpfully.

“— a swap to be made, and then everything will be put into motion from there,” Hotis finished.

“Er, refresh me on where I’ll be taking it to swap?” Really, it was remarkable that neither of them had figured out that Molly had no idea what they were talking about yet.

“Sutan General Hospital.” Hotis waved a backwards hand dismissively. “No need to go into the specifics; you’ll receive detailed instructions. We must complete the transaction.” He slid a parchment— a _parchment_ , of all the archaic things— across the ketchup-stained wooden tabletop. “Sign, and then take her. Our victory awaits us.”

“Uh— yeah. Sure. Right. Okay.” Molly began to sign his name, then scratched it out and scrawled the sigil for Lucien— which he still didn’t know how he knew, and he didn’t like it, thank you very much— as Ghurrix glowered at him. The gel pen he’d dug out of his pocket began to smolder towards the end of the rune, and he shook his head— he’d have to scrounge another one somewhere. The conjured ones just didn’t do the job right.

With great reverence and slight difficulty, Hotis retrieved a basket from under the table, and placed it before Molly. “She is our future,” he hissed. “Carry her swiftly to our final triumph.”

“I can and definitely will absolutely do that,” Molly said*, and picked up the basket gingerly. He began to carry it off to the parking lot, and when he had passed enough trees to probably obscure him, threw a panicked look over his shoulder and broke into a run.

Back at the picnic table, Ghurrix turned to Hotis after a long, sinister silence.

“Didn’t he used to have better fashion sense?” he asked.

 

* You know, like a liar.

 

* * *

 

The instructions had begun as a rather startling takeover of Molly’s Spotify playlist and had concluded with the sensation of being blasted in the head with a fire hose, as the remaining knowledge dropped in. It was terribly rude. And also it was terrifying.

Here he was, just a demon in a horrendous technicolor windbreaker, resting his forehead on the steering wheel of the gloriously ugly car he’d overpaid for. On the back seat, chirping and burbling in a basket, rested the Antichrist.

She didn’t really look all that alarming, was the kicker. Okay, the big gold eyes were a little weird, but otherwise, she seemed to be a pretty normal human baby, apart from the whole destined-to-bring-the-Armageddon thing.

And Molly was supposed to take her to some hospital, swap her in for some normal kid, and set the whole thing rolling.

He’d never thought himself long for the world, to be honest. He was a demon who had somehow gone AWOL, and that was just never going to end well. Only he hadn’t imagined he’d be asked to take the world with him. It was a terrible idea. The humans had come up with all sorts of remarkable things, and he’d only had two years to take it all in. Even for a being that didn’t need to sleep (but had realized that he occasionally liked to), that didn’t begin to approach enough.

The blast of information had mentioned that Heaven would be gearing up for it all too. He wondered if Yasha would be permanently on duty, now. She was mostly here to watch and guard, he’d figured out, but sometimes she vanished off on missions that weren’t really any of his business. Except maybe now they would be on the wrong end of his business. Shit.

“You know, we could just... not do this,” he said to the baby, in the sort of conversational tone that indicates that one is very definitely panicking very hard. “Find you some, I don’t know, nice eccentric or someone to raise you instead of a world leader you eventually enthrall and lead into the war to end all wars. That sound good? Would you stop being my problem, then?”

The baby cooed at him.

“I dunno, could you like... summon Yasha with your magic powers or something, so I could get some advice?” Not that Yasha was any less awkward with baby humans than with grown ones, but all Molly was thinking of at this point was of how much he needed backup. He glanced at the baby, who watched him placidly, not understanding a word.

“Can you be a good little daughter of darkness and not end the world if I drop you off with someone nicer?”

The baby said, “Ba?”

“...I’m so glad we understand each other.” Molly picked himself up off the wheel. “Let’s take you, uh, anywhere else.”

He drove long into the night, taking random turns until he was well and truly lost and had to silence the GPS with a curse. In the back seat, the baby repeated the word experimentally, and Molly instantly regretted ever opening his mouth. This was a doomed errand, this was all going to go horribly wrong, and it had to end now. He pulled over and looked around.

He’d driven to a little suburban neighborhood: not one of the new ones with the carbon-copy buildings and the Homeowner’s Associations (which he’d been given to understand were possibly a disguise for the demonic bureaucracy on Earth and therefore something he ought to avoid ever coming into contact with), but one of the older sorts, houses and duplexes all mishmashed together with the general agreement that everyone had their own style. Gardens and lawns clashed against each other, some trim, others overgrown, one with a particularly spectacular and apparently un-tended variety of plants he’d never seen before. His eyes fell upon a particularly odd duplex: one side slightly shabby but incredibly ordinary looking, the other painted in a bright sky blue he could see despite the dark, with all manner of painted clouds and flowers scattered across the front.

Some sort of weird, happy artist.

Perfect.

Molly got out of the car, and carefully dug the basket out of the back seat. The Harbinger of the End looked up at him curiously. He very deliberately avoided eye contact, and hurried up to the doorstep. “Now be good, or whatever,” he hissed, and placed the basket gently on a welcome mat flanked by— was that garden gnome anatomically...? well, it was probably fine. He turned and jogged away, leapt back into the car, started up down the street without looking back. As he blew the stop sign at the end of the street, he snapped his fingers, and the house’s doorbell rang. He wasn’t about to stick around to see who answered it.

 

* * *

 

The rudely awakened Beauregard Lionett had barely managed to identify thoughts beyond “doorbell” and “hate” before she heard footsteps rushing down the hall. Yeah, this could be a Somebody Else’s Problem. This could absolutely be a problem for her housemate, and not a problem for Beau to hit someone about, because that got the cops called, and she was not awake enough to deal with the fucking cops.

Granted, letting Jester deal with the problem was a problem on its own. “Hello?” her far-too-awake voice floated back up the hall, and Beau pulled her pillow over her head. “Is anyone— oh!” Jester’s voice grew indistinct, and Beau burrowed back into bed, eager to get back to sleep. She had almost managed to indignantly crawl back into unconsciousness when the door to her room slammed open.

“Beau you won’t believe what I—“

“Jess, it’s four in the FUCKING—“

“Not in front of the baby, Beau!”

“The what.” Beau rolled over. Sure enough, Jester was standing in the doorway, backlit by the hall light, and yes, definitely holding a baby. A very small baby, with an impressive shock of black hair, and big odd eyes. It was tucked into the crook of one of Jester’s arms, and Jester was currently holding her other hand protectively over one of its ears. Beau gaped. “Where—“

“Someone left her on our doorstep!” Jester gushed. “Which is super sad but it’s okay because I am going to take care of her and—“

“Jester, you have to call the— you can’t just—“ Beau’s brain was full on malfunctioning, she thought. That was the only explanation. The tea the new neighbor had given her had had something special in it, and now she was tripping balls. “Can’t just _keep_ — _doorstep_ — whatever. This is a weird goddamned dream, I give up.” She rolled back into the pillow, hoping for the soft, sensible embrace of her pillows.

“I will name her Kiri,” Jester prounounced to the back of Beau’s head. “If you are going to hide from her, you don’t get to help name her. And anyway she is a perfect angel and I will keep her safe, won’t I, Kiri? Oh, I have to call my momma...”

Her footsteps and accompanying cooing receded and the door closed, and Beau was left alone in the dark to wait fruitlessly for the part where she would wake up.

 

* * *

 

After no small amount of doing 90 in a 25 (which the car should not have been capable of, but he was antsy), Molly had gotten well away from the little suburban sprawl and was now clambering up the fire escape of his grungy old apartment building. He’d picked one right near the cathedral where Yasha tended to roost, for lack of a better word, and he was desperately hoping she was in. Hoping, because she barely checked her texts, so he had no guarantee that she’d seen his eight different panicked messages.*

Luckily, she did respond to thrown objects. As the third of Molly’s pebbles bounced off the warped old window pane, it opened, and Yasha popped her head out. “Molly, it’s _really_ not a good time,” she hissed across the gap.

“No, it’s not,” he agreed, “it’s the absolute worst time, which is why I really REALLY need to talk to you, come on.”

Yasha sighed, but began to haul herself out the window, and Molly looked both ways and then hopped aside as the angel simply leapt across the gap. He hurried down the fire escape into his tacky little apartment, and once Yasha was in and sitting down uncertainly on the sofa, he plunked down next to her, pulling a blanket miserably around his shoulders.

“I just got new orders,” Yasha began quietly.

“Yeah, uh, about that.” Molly twisted the ends of the blanket in his hands, only stopping when they began to smolder. “Shit, that smells awful. Uh. I also just got new orders, and, well, I might have just ding-dong-ditched some hippie with the Antichrist.”

Yasha jolted and stared at him. “What did you do?”

“I got called out to some godforsaken playground by a couple of Lords of Hell, and pretended to know what I was doing so they wouldn’t kill me, and they gave me a baby and some instructions and I panicked and left it on a doorstep,” Molly repeated, misery starting to give way to a hysterical giggle. “Y’think that’s enough? To cancel the apocalypse? God, Yasha, I really don’t wanna die, I really don’t want the world to end, I haven’t been to nearly enough parties yet—“

Yasha was still staring at him, but a hint of wonder was beginning to spread across her face. “I. Well. Okay,” she began. “I don’t know. That’s ridiculous. I think... it might work?”

It took a few seconds, but Molly stopped giggling. “Wait, you do?”

“Well,” Yasha said slowly, “she’s supposed to bring about all kinds of war and disaster, right? For one side or the other. But if she’s raised by someone ordinary—“

“I dunno about ordinary, Yash...”

“—or at least someone nice, maybe she... won’t want to? Destroy everything, I mean.”

Molly seized Yasha’s collar. “That’s it,” he declared desperately. “We just gotta make sure she grows up like a normal kid. Balanced, like. We can, I dunno, move in nearby and babysit?”

“Molly, I don’t know if—”

“No, no, _we have to be sure._ But if the people who live there are all right, then how hard could it be?”

 

* And also because he didn’t want to have to go over to find out; going on the cathedral grounds made him itch something fierce.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good Omens fusion raises a hell of a lot (heh) of worldbuilding questions, namely, do I set it on Earth or pull some sort of modern Exandria fusion, and do I stick with the Christian mythology of Good Omens or go with the Exandrian stuff for that. As far as setting goes, jury’s still out, though I’m at least going with a more modern setting than original Good Omens mostly because we all want to see Caduceus Clay try to text. As far as mythology goes... I thiiink I’m going to go with the original Good Omens flavor for that, with maybe a little bit of Exandrian flavoring, mostly because that’s what I know how to work with best.
> 
> Unrelated, writing Beau in this style’s gonna be REAL hard, I can tell.


	3. the ruby, the witch, and the roommates

“I still can’t believe you tried to get us the lease by offering to sleep with the realtor,” Yasha said into the stack of moving boxes currently obscuring her face. The bottom three she was carrying contained most of Molly’s possessions besides the furniture, the car, and the clothes on his person; the one on top contained all of hers.

“What?” Molly’s voice floated in from the next room over. “It sounded like fun! And it works in movies!”

“I think you are thinking of a pretty specific type of movie.” Yasha set the boxes down with a sigh and surveyed the room. Getting the house had required the use of both their powers, mostly involving Molly sitting down with his sticker-covered laptop and shoving sheer demonic will into it until the relevant records popped up on the screen, with a short coda of Yasha sighing and smoothing over the realtor’s memories. He’d remember less of the facial tattoos and the over-the-top flirtation, and more that the sale had gone extremely smoothly and probably done a great kindness to the sellers and the people of the neighborhood. And then they had both conjured up a joint bank account, and that was that— they were now officially roommates in the little house for sale on Seabreeze Boulevard, three houses down and across the street from Her. It was a nice little house, Yasha had to admit, even if the name was a bit of a stretch, being a good few miles from the nearest beach. But a nice house, to be sure. She didn’t really know what to do with it.

It had only been four days since the end of the world had been quietly announced. Molly’s orders had been precise, and he hadn’t followed them. Yasha’s orders had been extremely vague, and she also hadn’t followed them. It was terrifying, really, and she wasn’t remotely sure what she was doing. But then it was also probably fine.

Yasha hadn’t hung out with the right crowd, back in Heaven. She hadn’t hung out with the wrong crowd either, but some of the angels she’d been quite attached to had. Some of them had Fallen, and some— one in particular, she tried very hard not to think— had simply been lost in the war, and in the end of it she was left sitting on her cloud all brokenhearted while the higher-ups looked on with some suspicion. So they’d sent her down here, to watch over the humans and fight evil and whatnot, and she’d done it, because it was what she knew. Maybe it would keep her mind off things, she’d thought, repeatedly, for some six thousand-odd years. It never did, but she kept telling herself that.

She’d seen a lot down here, was the thing. Some of the humans were awful, worse than the angels she knew who Fell, before or after. Some had the most beautiful hearts she’d ever seen, and she’d begun to wonder if maybe they felt a love more strong and Good than any she’d ever seen Up There. But mostly they just were, swinging back and forth like the pendulum on the clock they’d built across the way from her old cathedral haunt, a few centuries into her living there. Where would they all be when the clock stopped? Was it really fair, Yasha thought blasphemously, for it to stop at all?

And then there was Molly. How was it that a demon could be just as well-meaning as the humans, sometimes? She’d pulled him out from under that bridge, two vanishingly short years ago, and taught him how to act vaguely like a human, but Yasha couldn’t take credit for anything else Molly had done. He people-watched a lot, she knew. It was a good activity for someone who was new to the world and, up until four days ago, had all the time in it. How could he pick their better parts to emulate along with their worse ones, if their natures were so set in stone?

She realized she’d been holding the boxes for a good fifteen minutes, and set them down. She tried to drag her train of thought backwards a bit. A house, on a quiet little street, across from the Antichrist, preventing the Armageddon, alongside a demon who might somehow be her best friend. She had no idea what to do with any of it.

 

* * *

 

Beau leaned over the back of the couch, staring at what she saw through the blinds of the front window. Distantly she was aware that she was gaping like an idiot, but she currently lacked any ability to stop.

There was a stretch limousine in front of her house. An old model, very fancy, fancier even than her estranged parents could afford. It stuck out like a sore thumb on her deeply ordinary little residential street. And it was just sitting there, engine idling, but not moving.

Finally she regained some slight power of speech. “Uh... Jes...ter...?” she called back into the house.

“Shh _quiet_ Beau you’ll wake Kiri, I just got her down to nap,” came Jester’s tired reply, shortly followed by Jester herself. Her usual cheer was dimmed somewhat by two days’ sleep deprivation; Beau hadn’t really volunteered to help with the whole “unexpectedly a new parent” thing. Well, more than once or twice. Three times. Something like that. She was still hoping Jester would see sense and find the kid a real family to adopt her.

Then Jester looked from Beau’s sofa perch to the gap she’d made in the blinds, and lit up, all exhaustion apparently forgotten. “She’s here! That’s my Momma!” And before Beau knew what was going on, Jester had looped an arm through hers and towed her out the front door at top speed.

The limousine’s door opened as soon as Jester came rushing out front. Beau stumbled down the front walk, then full-on tripped: getting out of the car in front of her, laden down with heavy shopping bags and wearing a deeply uncertain expression, was an incredibly beautiful and glamorous woman— beautiful, glamorous, and familiar. Beau had seen her in magazines. Of multiple varieties. Dark, just-a-bit-more-red-than-natural hair cascaded over the smooth curve of one shoulder. Lips that must have modeled a hundred shades pursed in slight consternation. Long lashes blinked around dark amber eyes and impeccable eyeliner.

“Jess, what the fuck,” Beau said faintly, “why didn’t you ever tell me your mom was friggin’ _Ruby del Mar_?”

In a complete lack of response, Jester dropped Beau’s hand and dashed forward to throw her arms around Ruby. “Momma, I am so glad you’re here!” she proclaimed. “I am so excited to show you every— oh, oh, come in come in come in,” she fretted as she pulled back and saw the uncertainty in Ruby's expression. She scooped up both shopping bags in one hand, and pulled Ruby up the walk, right past Beau, who took a few seconds to register that the direction she was staring in was no longer where Ruby was. “Beau, come in! Bluud will bring in Momma’s things, don’t worry!” Jester shouted out after another moment past.

Beau somehow found herself back in the house, presumably having walked there. “Nice to meet you, uh, Miss... Ruby... ma’am,” she said faintly. “...Jester...?”

“Please, call me Marion,” Jester’s mother said warmly, and Beau just about melted. “There is no reason why my daughter’s best friend should have to use my stage name. She’s told me so much about you.”

Beau continued to melt. “Uhhhhhhhhonly good things, I hope?” she said, recovering for a split second, and then promptly lost her internal balance again.

“I mean, duh, Beau, you are the best roommate ever,” Jester chimed in. “But anyway, Momma, thank you for coming so far and so quickly! Kiri is asleep right now but you can meet her when she wakes up, she really needs her nap, meanwhile I think I remembered mostly everything, mostly, but maybe you can... help me make sure.” She failed to stifle a yawn.

“I am sure you are doing a good job,” Marion said. “Show me what you have so far, and then we should talk about... well, there will be legal matters whichever decision you make, so I can call up my lawyer, and if there’s anything you need to buy I can send one of my staff— you must be tired.”

The conversation presumably continued, but Beau stopped hearing it, because she’d gone right back outside to scream internally while externally letting out a long, low “whaaaaaat” to anyone who happened to be listening. Marion’s driver, still parked out front, graciously did not comment.

 

* * *

 

Caduceus Clay was no longer the new person on the block.

Well, he hadn’t been for a bit, actually. He’d managed to sublet out the spare room last week, to a fellow trying to balance university studies with work at the docks who didn’t seem to mind living with a practicing witch so long as the rent was low. That was nice. And the two young women across the street, who he hadn’t even been sure were a couple yet, had apparently just finalized an adoption a few days ago. He’d heard the one with the pretty blue dye job singing cheerfully to the baby on and off, in the evenings. That was real nice, even if he’d never really expected to hear some of those words in a song to soothe a kid.

But there was a new pair of roommates who had just moved in, two doors down. And again, as his new housemate so determinedly attempted to take in stride, Caduceus was a witch. And so he could sense that something about these particular new folks was throwing off the celestial and arcane energies of the place like nobody’s business. His garden wards had all been knocked out of joint, his morning read of the knucklebones had gone haywire, and honestly worst of all, two of his tea tins had lost all flavor.

That... really wasn’t great, all things considered.

But, as far as the witchcraft tradition in the Clay family went, Caduceus felt that he’d been raised right. So he did what a person who’d been raised right ought to do. He made up a couple of sachets of the tea that hadn’t gone bad, and went over to greet the people who’d put his morning into such disarray.

The aura emanating from the neighbors’ house set all Caduceus’ hair on end as he ambled up to the door, but he just kept ambling, and gave the doorbell a courteous ring.

“Um, nobody is home,” came a voice from inside— pleasant enough, and sounding distinctly more unsure than Caduceus himself. That was interesting.

“She’s lying!” called another voice cheerfully. The door opened, and a colorful collage of piercings and tattoos materialized into a person leaning against the doorway. “Hi,” said the collage. Caduceus noted with some interest the brief flash of a forked tongue. He had the feeling that there were a lot of body mods going on here, but that probably wasn’t one of them. “We just moved in,” the collage continued, grinning, and yes, those were fangs, weren’t they? “What’s up?”

“I kind of figured you’d just moved in,” Caduceus replied agreeably. “I’m Caduceus Clay. I just wanted to say hi, welcome you to the neighborhood, and all. I brought some tea.”

“Delightful! Come on in,” said the collage. They made to open the door further with a flourish, but a hand stopped them, attached to what appeared to be a woman-shaped wall.

“Molly, he can’t come in yet,” the wall said. “We’re not— unpacked. I’m, um, very sorry,” she added to Caduceus, and began to lever the door shut with Molly-the-collage still partially attached to it.

“That’s perfectly all right.” Caduceus examined the wall. She was much more simply dressed, and also practically glowing as far as he was concerned. “I just brought a gift for now, I can come back later for introductions if it’s not a good time.”

He held out the sachets, and a tattooed hand snaked out the door to grab them just before the wall got the door the rest of the way shut. “Thanks dear! Please do!” came the cheerful voice, now muffled, as Caduceus just stood and stared at the door for a few moments.

Yes, something very strange was definitely going on, and sooner or later he’d need to figure out what.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pops up from underwater, wheezes for breath, yeets chapter onto the shore and sinks beneath the waves again


End file.
